Loving A Human Train Wreck
It is an early afternoon on America’s birthday. From where Kelani sits on the patio of Stone Mad Pub, he glances at the blended pink, blue, and white hue painting the sky. The air smells like coconut and berries. A proposal happening on the other end of the patio catches his attention. He watches a man in a yellow polo shirt get down on one knee in front of his girlfriend who is chewing a mouth full of pancake and maple syrup with hollowed dimples stamped on her face. The giggling young woman bops her head as the man slips a ring on her finger. She leans forward to hug her fiancé from the chair like her butt is stuck to the metal chair. They kiss like the uncorking of a wine bottle until the woman chokes. She pulls away from him to drink some water with her palm tapping on her chest. The fiancé prances, oblivious of what to do until a waiter comes along to perform a Heimlich maneuver, causing her to splatter a gross mixture of food all over her soon-to-be husband’s shirt.
Kelani checks the clock on his phone, then goes on to read Katherine’s message to be sure he has not mixed up their meeting time.
Hey Kel, would you like to meet up for brunch at our place tomorrow at noon?
He locks his phone after rereading the text and reclines on his chair. It is forty-five minutes past noon and Katherine is nowhere to be seen.
They have been best friends since high school. Their tight-knit friendship continued to college until they went their separate ways. It was not his idea but Katherine’s doing.
* * *
It was three months ago, that they decided to attend a send-off party hosted by a sorority to celebrate their final semester as college seniors, even though they were not pledges. Kelani was going to confess his feelings to her when they returned to their shared apartment. He had written several letters, all of which became crumpled pieces of dirt in his bathroom trash. He decided he was going to get wasted, then freestyle his heart to his best girl but the night had a plan of its own. They ended up playing the stripping game with a group of randos from different fraternity and sorority houses. Kelani watched Katherine move through the room towards the restroom—hands grabbed her waist and pulled her into what seemed to be the restroom or bedroom. He wiped his foggy pair of glasses and fixed it on the bridge of his nose again with nausea resting at the tip of his tongue.
He no longer felt comfortable and was prepared to leave but could not find Katherine. He sent a text to her phone:
Kat, why are you taking so long in the bathroom? I feel sick and I have a presentation tomorrow. I will see you at home.
In their apartment, after downing water, he heard the bell ring and ran to answer the door, hoping to see Katherine at the door. It was the cake delivery. He collected, smashed, and destroyed it with his best impression of the hulk with his tall lanky body and his afro curls huffing with his chest. That night, he waited and watched the door but she never showed up. “Shit! I knew I should have told her how I felt before the party. What a mess.” He said before falling asleep on the couch.
* * *
Lost in his thoughts, Kelani fails to notice Katherine arrive at their table until he hears her tap her knuckle on the table. She looks so beautiful in her mini patterned dress that he can hear the sound of his heart beating. Even though they have not seen each other in three months, he still feels drawn to her. He gulps down his glass of water and says, “Took you a while to show up.” He smiles to eliminate any awkwardness. “Do you want to take a minute before we order?”
“It’s fine. I am ready to order.” Katherine responds while adjusting her butt on the chair.
Kelani calls a waiter and they both speak at the same time, “Pancake and Maple syrup, please.” They look at each other and chuckle.
“Anything else?” The waiter asks. “A side of fruit with mine and orange juice for two,” Katherine completes their order.
Alone in their bubble, Kelani avoids eye contact. He thinks about the million things he has to ask Katherine but the most important one that nestles at the tip of his tongue is “why? Why did she ghost him for the past three months?” He keeps this question to himself; the way he hid the origamis he had made for her in high school. He will wait for her to speak first, to repair the broken bridge, to mend their torn friendship, to lay all her cards on the table before saying anything. He looks at her and catches her chewing her nails. She is avoiding any eye contact with him too. She is restraining herself from saying whatever bothers her. He knocks his knuckle on the table to get her attention.
“How have you been, Kat?”
She smiles and meets his eyes. “Good. I have been good.” He uses his two fingers to push back his pair of glasses on the bridge of his nose. He interlocks his palm and places them on the table. Katherine attempts to touch his palms but the waiter arrives with their food.
They savor their three slices of pancake with a large amount of syrup sprinkled on top. Every time Katherine attempts to cut part of her food, her fork and knife made a screeching sound from their friction with the plates. It makes him nervous, unhinged, and uncomfortable. “Why did you reach out to me?” he finally lets out.
“What?” Katherine asks in a bird-like voice.
He drops his cutleries. “Three months, Kat, I didn’t hear from you so why now? Don’t hide anything from me.” He sees the tears forming in her eyes and lips whimpering. This is not what he expected. But this is what their friendship has always been like. Katherine hurts him, annoys him, or betrays their friendship and he is the one that has to apologize. One time he told her not to jump the fence, but she did and ended up twisting her ankle. Another time, he begged her to skip breakfast or they were going to have a late attendance for the class and she refused. Again, he told her to always zip her backpack before taking the bus, she never listened to him and ended up losing her school ID. Every single time she messed up, he said he was sorry and did the heavy lifting to soothe her.
“I am pregnant,” she blurts out. “I got knocked up by a rando at some party that we attended together, two weeks before graduation. I was embarrassed, okay. You had your shit together and I didn’t what to mess it up. We were best friends but I could not look at you, look at me carrying another guy’s child. Plus, I had my parents to deal with. The world around me was changing so fast and so were my feelings for you, Kel. I was dealing with a lot. I am a train wreck.” She cries with syrup stain at the corners of her mouth.
Kelani stops eating after hearing the news about her pregnancy and his wrists rest on the edge of the table with the cutleries in his palms. He looks up at her. Words form and rush to the tip of his like the popping of popcorn kernels—he wants to react, to blow off the steam rising above his head. His fingertips tighten around the joint of the cutleries. He watches Katherine’s mouth roll with the pancake and maple syrup.
At the corner of her mouth, there is a stain of the maple syrup that gives Katherine the demeanor of a child and this makes Kelani smile. The words and the steam dissipate as sudden as they came. He missed this, he loves her, and he leans forward with a napkin to wipe her mouth but stops midway with the brown material hanging in the air between them. Their eyes meet and he jerks his body backward. He cannot bear to look at her. This might be her way of stringing and toying with his feelings again.
“How can she deny knowing how I feel when I showed her in every possible way? Did our love have to be written in the stars like some stupid happy ever after animation? Could anyone else spell love the way he did?” Kelani thinks to himself.
His mind lists the silly things he did for Katherine before they went their separate ways—wiping her shitty vomit on the floor, holding her hair while she ate noodles, waiting for her at the bus stop while it rained, putting his coat over her shivering body when it was winter. He used to be a living, walking Korean drama and she was blind not to have known. Now, there is a baby in her picture—in a picture he cannot afford on his wall.
“I am sorry, Kel. Say something, will you?” He hears her sob like the crackle of a biscuit, the patter of rain. This is not how he had expected his day to go when he awoke in the morning. Words falter in his mouth. He stares at her like a masonry drill bit. The world around them moves along like a train in the subway and he feels like a bloated balloon tied to a chair—waiting for someone to recognize it has a pocket of feelings. Katherine has not stopped crying. Kelani is certain she will not stop until he assumes her weight of guilt like the trading of cards.
